Reflections of a Jinchurikki
by uo-chou
Summary: The Fourth Hokage uses a different technique to seal the Kyuubi, granting Naruto a special ability like the other Jinchurikki have. The ninja world is not prepared for the arrival of a true Jinchurikki of the nine tailed fox!
1. Chapter 1

Reflections of a Jinchurikki

Prologue: A Mistake is Corrected

The bijuu are beast of incredible power. When sealed into human hosts, their containers obtain incredible abilities. All jinchurikki have the ability to rapidly heal. All jinchurikki have the ability to draw on their demon's youki. All jinchurikki have the ability to transform into their demon. There is also a unique ability that each Bijuu grants its host, the potential power and complexity of the ability increasing with the number of tails the demon possesses. The zero tail gives the power to absorb energy. The one tail grants power over sand. The two tails grants control of the dead. The three tails gives mastery of water. The four tailed beast gives power over magma. The five tails gives unparalleled physical strength. The six tailed beast gives its holder unbreakable genjutsu techniques. The seven tailed beast gives its user the power to read and influence minds. The eight tailed beast bequeaths to its host superhuman coordination and speed.

The jinchurikki of the first eight demons have one thing in common; the bijuu they contain were sealed using techniques that allowed their tenants' chakra to mix with their own. Naruto's sealing was different. Rather than using a man-made sealing technique, the Fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato, summoned a lesser God to seal the most powerful of the bijuu, doubting his own ability to do so due to the fox's immense strength. In doing so he tied the Kyuubi's fate to Naruto's own, intertwining their very souls. Namikaze Minato assumed that this would amplify any ability the Kyuubi might bestow on its container. He was wrong. The nature of the seal the Fourth used was fundamentally different than any seal ever used to contain a living entity, and while it allowed Naruto and Kyuubi's souls to overlap, is also robbed his son of the chance of ever expressing the special ability given by the demon fox, or even it's chakra. The supplementary Hakke no Fūin Shiki allowed Naruto to access the fox's chakra in an indirect way by breaking a tiny hole in the Shinigami's seal, though without their chakra mixing freely from birth every time the fox gave Naruto even a hint of chakra his body was damaged. He was less a jinchurikki and more a hermetically sealed vault with a tiny leak. True, the door could be opened upon command, but they really were separate beings, instead of the mixture that a true jinchurikki embodied.

Now, dear readers, we venture back in time to a night most terrible, to a village under siege by a walking force of nature. To a history that could have been, if only a single man had believed in himself, and his own abilities.

Namikaze Minato stood atop Gamabunta, the lord of the Toad summons. Less than a mile away stood the Kyuubi, king of the tailed beasts and the most powerful force on the mortal plane. The tall blond shinobi had been debating with himself for hours now over which sealing technique to use to contain the nine tailed demon, but now that he saw it in person, he knew. He had almost chosen to do something never attempted before in the ninja world; summon the shinigami to seal the beast. One he got his fear of the demon under control he realized that it might not be such a good idea to involve a god in the sealing of a demon. He had intelligence that suggested that the eight tails had been contained by a standard seal, so he assumed the nine tails could be sealed that way as well. He had already designed a standard seal that would do the job. The technique he intended to use was an array comprised of three Four Symbol seals, called the Juunisho Fūin. Minato thought that twelve might be a significant number in relation to containing a nine-tailed beast. It was an even number, which was always good to use on living beings, and twelve and nine were both divisible by three, which was the number of seals normally used to contain a demon. He knew for a fact though, that the no bijuu over two tails could be held with a three way seal. He hoped that twelve would be enough for the king of beasts.

Another reason the blond Hokage had chosen was personal, and selfish. He didn't want the final resting place for his immortal soul to be the Death God's stomach, undergoing an eternity of being continually digested. Any sealing method strong enough to contain one of the bijuu was enough to end the life of the person who performed the technique, but at least this way he would travel to the afterlife rather than become food.

Bracing himself as the monster approached, Minato began performing hand seals. In a sling wrapped across his back lay his son, young Naruto, freshly born less than a day earlier. Before coming to face the Kyuubi, Minato had placed him in a forced sleep technique which would hold up for hours. The strongest ninja in the world smiled a bittersweet smile for his wife, Uzumaki Kushina, dead of childbirth that morning, and another for the child who would grow up without either a father or a mother.

Quickly, he steeled his resolve and finished his technique just as the great beast was upon him. Leaping up, his palm glowing, Minato bitch slapped the King of Demons in the snout. He felt a searing pain travel down his arm and into his heart. Lifting his other hand, he placed it on Naruto's stomach. He screamed as the energy released by the technique tore his body into it's component atoms, causing a massive explosion and dispelling Gamabunta.

The giant fox became a tornado of energy, swirling violently, above young Naruto. It screamed in rage as it swirled into nothingness, being rapidly absorbed by the seal on the child's stomach. Then it was gone, and the night was once again calm.

Naruto's tiny body fell over fifty feet, and landed head first onto the rocky ground. When the Third Hokage found him minutes later, the young child was completely unharmed.

&~&~&~&~&~&

Author's Note: Yeah, I started a new story rather than updating any of the ones I currently have going. Some of my readers will probably hate me for that, but I don't care; I like this idea too much to let it sit on the shelf. After seeing Gaara in the manga, I was always seriously disappointed that Naruto didn't have a special ability from the Kyuubi, so I'm going to make a story where he has one. Some of you will probably say it's overpowered, but the Kyuubi is the most powerful demon by far, so it should be strong. If you look at the title of the story, some of you might be able to guess what his ability will be. A free virtual cookie goes to the first person to correctly guess what it is. So, yeah, this story is going to be a lot different from cannon due to the change in Naruto. I expect it will be fun to write. Please read and review; I'm like a rabid dog, and reviews are the only vaccine that can cure me! ;)


	2. Chapter 2

Reflections of a Jinchurikki

Chapter I: Rubber and Glue

Naruto was three years old when he realized he was different from the other children at the orphanage where he lived. This understanding didn't happen all at once, though there was a specific event that triggered it.

Young Uzumaki Naruto was playing outside with his favorite toy, a small rusty kitchen knife that he found in one of the trash cans behind the orphanage, which he had affectionately named Stabby-kun. Naruto loved Stabby-kun; besides the clothes on his back, the knife was his most beloved possession, and his only friend. Neither of the two elderly sisters who ran the orphanage had noticed him with it yet. The two, being midway into the early stages of senility, didn't notice much of anything anymore. Naruto, at three, had the kind of motor control a child of six would envy and loved to whittle crude shapes out of scraps of wood, and carve symbols especially spirals, into trees. He also liked to play a game which you or I would call "five finger fillet", but that Naruto referred to as "stab the ground between my fingers really fast". He would place his hand on the ground, with his digits splayed widely, and quickly bring the rusty blade down between his fingers, into the dirt. Moving the knife ever quicker, he would bring it down between each space and back again, giggling with delight as he did so. He had never once missed with the knife since he had invented the game several weeks before.

Today, as the young blond jinchurikki was frantically plunging the knife between his fingers and giggling like a lunatic, something happened to distract him from his game. Miss Shuuki, one of the caretakers, rang the bell to call the children in for lunch. His small stomach quivering in anticipation, Naruto turned his head away from his hand. His other hand continued its plunge downward, and the tip of the blade met his skin. If anyone had been looking closely, they would have seen a miniscule flicker of red light coming from where the blade touched his hand. Naruto felt a slight sensation, almost like a tickle, and looked down in confusion. The knife hadn't injured him. At all. Not even a little. Naruto shrugged. Tucking Stabby-kun into the back of his shorts, the little boy ran into the cafeteria to get some food.

After his hunger was sated, Naruto ran outside to figure out just what had happened earlier. He knew the knife was sharp, and that it was capable of carving trenches into solid wood. He thought it might do the same with his skin, were he careless enough to let it happen. The blond toddler decided to resolve this dilemma with a bit of experimentation, though such thoughts were rendered in a much more simplistic manner. Naruto first decided to make sure Stabby-kun was still sharp. He did so by first stabbing a bunch of holes into a box he found in the trash, then making another spiral on the trunk of another unfortunate tree. Satisfied that the knife still worked, he knew it was time to test it on himself. He held up his right hand, Stabby-kun firmly clenched in his left. He slowly pushed the point into the tip of his index finger, expecting at any moment to see a hole appear and blood spill forth. He had seen enough of the other children get into accidents that he knew what to expect. He saw a flicker of red, and figured it was blood, but no pain came. The knife still pressed into his finger, he looked closer, and realized that the red wasn't blood, but some kind of light. He felt a hint of pressure, but not a bit of the pain being pierced by a sharp object would normally bring. He pushed harder. The glow intensified a tiny bit, but nothing else happened.

Frustrated and confused, Naruto decided to up the ante. He pulled back his arm, and then brought it down, into the palm of his hand. There was a brighter glow, and the knife literally _bounced_ off of his skin, making his arm recoil, and launching Stabby-kun into the woods behind him. The little boy sat, dumbstruck. Nothing in his limited experience had prepared him for something like this. After a few moments, his brain kicked in, and he jumped up, whooping in delight! This was _awesome_! Still yelling boisterously, Naruto ran back into the woods to recover his knife.

&~&~&~&~&~&

Over three months had passed, as well as another birthday, since the now four year old Uzumaki Naruto had first discovered that his knife could not penetrate his skin. He had conducted other experiments in that time, and had found that he seemed to be immune to other forms of harm as well.

After the first attempt, he had tried pushing Stabby-kun into his other hand, then both of his feet, and finally his right eyeball, all to no effect. Over the course of the next week, he had tried stabbing every part of his body, not only with his knife, but also with forks, butter knives, chopsticks, tree branches, and the jagged edge of a broken bottle. It didn't matter what he used, it seemed he was immune to stabbing. Naruto thought this was awesome, and finally got the other children to play with him by encouraging them to stab him with various objects he stole from the orphanage's kitchen, or from the garbage. He never shared Stabby-kun, though. When one of the other kids wrenched her arm trying to force the jagged lip of a tin can into his torso, they shied away from his again. It had been fun while it lasted, thought young Naruto. The girl who got hurt, a bun-hair child about year older than the blond jinchurikki, tried to get him in trouble, but was herself punished when she told the caretakers how she was injured. Naruto thought that was hilarious.

A month later, Naruto had discovered a new pastime; climbing trees. He would find the tallest tree he could, get a running start, and then shimmy up as far as he could. He was able to get to the tops of some of them due to his slight weight. One day, as he reached the apex of a particularly thin pine, the top snapped off and Naruto fell over twenty feet to the ground. He screamed in terror, and then finally landed on hard packed earth, directly onto the back of his neck. Expecting to feel excruciating pain, Naruto was disappointed. He felt… nothing. It was like he had landed on the mattress of his bed. There was a sensation there, but it was so gentle as to be almost ignorable. Intrigued, he climbed up the tree again, and jumped off. This time he landed on his hands and knees, but again felt no pain and sustained no injuries. His young mind whirled with the possibilities. Not only was he stab-proof, he was fall-proof as well! He spent the entirety of the new week jumping off of increasingly tall trees, failing to hurt himself each time.

After a time, he grew bored of falling, and stopped jumping from the tops of trees for fun. He had found out, through trial and error, that he could change his direction by moving his body in various ways, and could now land on his feet almost every time. He felt a bit of pressure on the soles of his feet and his knees when he did so, but no more than he felt when he jumped straight up into the air and landed. He decided that if he was going to jump from somewhere, it had better be some place tall and exciting. He thought about jumping from the Hokage monument, but it was all the way on the other side of Konoha, and he wasn't allowed to go there.

During the next few months, Naruto discovered a lot of things that failed to injure him. When one of the bullies as the orphanage had tried to take his pudding one night, Naruto found that any punches or shoves were deflected away from himself; with roughly the force they were given. The bully had wrenched his arm after his fist hit Naruto's face and flew backward. When he got up and shoved the blond jinchurikki with all the force his seven year old frame could muster, he was thrown backward bodily, and banged the back of his head into the wooden floor. Crying, he ran away. No one picked on Naruto after that.

Naruto also discovered, quite by accident, that poisons and spoiled food didn't seem to effect him like it did other people. He was going through the kitchen one night, just to look around, when he found a green bottle that had skull and crossbones on it. Thinking it had to be something delicious, because skeletons were _fucking awesome_; Naruto quickly drank down the whole bottle. When he pulled the bottle back, he tasted the last little bit, and wrinkled his nose in disgust. The stuff in the bottle tasted absolutely horrible. For one second, he thought he would be sick, but his stomach felt fine. As he was standing there with the bottle in his little hands, the door to the kitchen opened, and Ms. Su, the other caretaker walked in, flicking on the light as she did so.

"Why, you little rapscallion! What are you doing out of bed?" she noticed the bottle in his hands, and recognized it immediately. "What are you doing with that!? That's poison! It's yucky! Give me that." The elderly woman snatched the bottle from Naruto's hands. She quickly realized it was empty. "It's a good thing it's all gone; even a sip of this would kill you dead. Never touch stuff like this again, little Shinji, or Akira, or whoever you are. Now go back to bed."

Naruto scampered off, back to bed. As he fell asleep, he prayed to Kami that the poison wouldn't kill him. It didn't, and in the morning he felt as fine as ever. He thought that maybe he was poison proof, and tested it by eating stuff from the trash and the little bits of poison from the rat and roach traps around the orphanage. He never got sick, and once he washed the bad tastes from his mouth he was right as rain.

&~&~&~&~&~&

Shortly after his fourth birthday, his special abilities were noticed by and adult for the first time, by the Sandaime Hokage, in fact. The elderly shinobi had stopped by the orphanage to take Naruto out for a special birthday dinner, as he had done each year since Naruto had been born. Sarutobi was content to leave Naruto in the care of the two elderly matrons in the rural orphanage on the edge of the village. They were old acquaintances of his, and he had spoken to them at length about Naruto before he had allowed them to care for the boy; He was satisfied that they would be impartial with him, and in this out of the way setting, the boy could grow up away from the scorn he would surely suffer in Konoha proper.

The old man arrived at the orphanage, bearing little gifts for the dozen or so children who lived there. He handed out candy and small toys, then quickly spirited Naruto away while the other children ate their sweets. He was the leader of the village, after all, and didn't have enough time to split it between every orphan in Konoha. He made an exception, though, for the child of his successor.

"Ojii-san, where are we going today? Is it really my birthday already?" babbled Naruto, as he clutched the hand of the Sandaime.

Sarutobi chuckled, "It really is your birthday, my dear boy. You're four years old already, and I'm taking you out to buy you a birthday present, as well as for dinner." The old man chuckled at the stunned expression on Naruto's face, as it morphed into a huge grin.

"Yeah! Ojii-san, you're the greatest!" shouted Naruto.

The two walked into town, to a clothing store owned by a friend of Sarutobi's. He had made prior arrangements with the owner to close the shop so he could buy some extra things for Naruto. The orphanage clothed him, but he felt the boy might enjoy having a special outfit or two. They entered through the front door of the shop, and a bell jingled in welcome. The man behind the counter smiled in greeting.

"Hello, Aka-san. Naruto and I will be picking out a few outfits for him today." Aka-san smiled, then moved his hands in a complicated pattern; Konoha sign-language. Aka had had his tongue cut out by Iwa-nin in the third secret war, and so could only talk with his hands.

"Thanks, Aka," said Sarutobi. "I will let you know if we need any help."

The Hokage led Naruto around the shop, and helped him pick out several things, including a pair of black shorts and a white T-shirt with a black spiral on it. He also picked out a pair of triple reinforced trousers and jacket; Naruto would need to begin training his body soon; he was scheduled to join the shinobi academy in only two years.

Naruto smiled at the purchases as Aka rang them up, and then the two left for the restaurant that Sarutobi had picked out for Naruto's birthday dinner. The people on the street glanced in their direction a few times, and a couple of them who recognized the demon container frowned, but no one was willing to say or do anything with the village leader right there. They arrived at the eatery, a small restaurant called Ichiraku's, and sat in the open air booth waiting for service. The proprietor was a recent immigrant to Konoha, and he and his daughter were briefed about the Kyuubi personally by Sarutobi before their opinion on the boy could be warped by well-intentioned bigots. Sarutobi had not seen a need to include adults in the secrecy law surrounding the nine-tails sealing, so he knew it was only a matter of time before the man would find out anyways. Ichiraku Teuchi had been stunned by the information, but not scared or angry. Sarutobi had judged the cook to be impressed by the fact that the world's most powerful demon was contained by a mere child.

As Sarutobi watched the man prepare their order, he felt like his supposition was concerned. The man was almost deferential to Naruto, though he slowly warmed to him over the course of their dinner, especially when Naruto had demanded seconds and thirds of the ramen he prepared, eating until his little stomach was distended like a pregnant woman.

"Well, I think four bowls is enough, eh Naruto?" asked Sarutobi, chuckling lightly. Naruto frowned, but agreed. Even if this "ramen" was delicious, he was incredibly full. Sarutobi paid for their meal, and the two walked off. The third Hokage led Naruto up a winding path to the top of the Hokage tower, carrying the child on his shoulders when he tired. When they reached the top, Naruto, who had almost fallen asleep, came awake instantly, shouting in glee.

"Ojii-san! We're really up here. This place is awesome, I've seen it from the orphanage a lot," the boy continued babbling, while Sarutobi smiled and lit his pipe. Naruto really was a bundle of energy. He let the child keep talking while he smoked and pretended to pay attention. The boy really liked to run his mouth, the old leader mused.

"…and then I hit the ground, but I was OK, and I thought it would be really hard but it wasn't and I could see the top of the Fourth's head from up on the tree and I really wanted to jump off of it, and now I can!" finished the young Jinchurikki.

Sarutobi just nodded, smiling and smoking. He was thinking about all of the paperwork he had skipped to spend the day with the young boy, and how he was going to have to work doubly hard to make it up tomorrow.

Taking the nod as permission, Naruto sprinted to the edge of the Fourth's head, and leapt into the abyss.

Sarutobi's eyes widened, and he sprinted to the edge, half a second too late. "NARUTO!" he screamed, as he watched the boy fall. His pipe dropped from his slack lips and went tumbling over the edge. The Third Fire Shadow's hands flew through the seals for a wind jutsu, but he knew he would be too late to save the boy. He watched in despair, as Naruto dropped, and then hit the ground.

His heart jerked in his chest, as Sarutobi Hiruzen saw the four year old boy land on his feet, hundreds of feet below, like a cat. Naruto waved up at the Hokage, and Sarutobi, dumbstruck, waved back down to him.

&~&~&~&~&~&

Author's Note: Wow, I think this is one of the longest chapter's I have yet posted. I hope y'all like it; I went out of my way to add more detail and character thought to this installment. Anyhow, the next chapter should see some more interesting developments, as it is the point where this story will significantly diverge from cannon. I'm open to any suggestions as well, so if you have any ideas, shoot them my way. I think I've given a pretty detailed analysis of Naruto's special ability, but the next chapter will describe it fully, so stay tuned if you're a bit confused. Also, review please. Reviews are a fine Chianti, and I need a bottle to go with the fava beans and human liver I plan to sup on this evening.


	3. Chapter 3

Reflections of a Jinchurikki

Chapter II: Sticks and Stones

After the incident at the Hokage monument, Sarutobi had insisted that Naruto undergo a full checkup at Konoha's hospital, despite the boy's protests that he was fine. Sarutobi received another shock when the medic-nin's needle bounced off of Naruto's skin without penetrating it. Naruto had loudly proclaimed at that point that he was stab-proof, fall-proof, and poison-proof, and the explanations behind how he had discovered these things about himself. Sarutobi was mortified that the boy was allowed to go unsupervised to this degree. He trusted the two elderly caretakers at the orphanage, but perhaps it was time for them to retire if they could no longer keep up with the children in their care.

They managed to get some blood by having Naruto bite his own lip, and collecting the few drops that came out before the wound sealed itself up less than two seconds after it had been made. They tested his blood to see if he could have an advanced bloodline, as well as for anything else they could think of at the time. Every test which might have offered an answer came back negative, indicating that Naruto's skill of reflecting damage was linked to his status as a Jinchurikki, as the Third Hokage has suspected all along. After the visit to the hospital Sarutobi returned Naruto to the orphanage. Before he left the boy, he sternly warned him not to test out his abilities any further, as he could become seriously injured or die if he happened to find something he was not immune to. Naruto solemnly agreed, willing to follow any order from the old man he loved so much.

That night Sarutobi did some serious pondering. With his chakra reserves and special ability, Naruto had the potential to be the most powerful ninja the world had ever seen. With stamina enough to fight continuously for hours or days, and the ability to never take damage, he would be nigh unstoppable. Oh, Sarutobi could think of half of a dozen ways to neutralize him, but he was a Kage-level ninja, of which there were maybe a dozen in all of the world. With some early training, and a lot of work, Naruto himself had the potential to not only be kage level, but to surpass in power all of the world's ninja combined. Even if it turned out he wasn't immune to ninjutsu and genjutsu, it was the rare ninja who fell to those techniques directly. Chakra techniques were mainly used to trap an opponent, the final blow usually delivered with kunai, shuriken, or bare hands.

Early the next morning, after spending hours considering his options, the Third Hokage finally decided that he would train Naruto himself. With the potential his ability granted him, the boy's introduction into the ninja arts was too important to waste on a lesser teacher. No other ninja living or dead could claim to have trained three raw students to kage level, after all.

After a few hours nap on the couch in his office, Sarutobi sent a group of administrative chuunin over to Naruto's orphanage to inspect the living conditions there, as well as the state of the children. They returned a few hours later and gave their report. Evidently one of the caretakers was midway into senility, and the other so ill that she could barely walk. The children basically ran out of control. With a weary sigh, Sarutobi ordered the orphanage closed. He was at a loss as to what to do with the children though. Konoha had only one other orphanage and it was over capacity already. Quickly shuffling through some papers, he found what he thought would be a good solution. None of the orphans was younger than five years old, except for Naruto, and so he appropriated an abandoned apartment building that had been sitting empty for just over six months, and ordered it cleaned and furnished, and the children to be given single occupancy apartments. He offered a few trustworthy ninja he knew free housing in the complex, provided that they look after the children in a rotating schedule, and seven of them agreed, providing him with an assurance that the children would be at least somewhat looked after. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it would do in a pinch.

For Naruto, Sarutobi decided to move the boy into his own home. When he heard the news, Naruto actually cried. It was the first time the Sandaime had seen Naruto cry, or even heard of it. As the child embraced him, the old man smiled. He was glad that he could help his surrogate grandson.

Sarutobi started Naruto's training the day after he moved in. He decided that the most important skill the boy could have would be speed. With the speed to dodge traps and get in close to the enemy before they could cast a jutsu, Naruto would be nigh unstoppable. Most ninja considered it suicide to rush a stationary opponent and try close quarters weapon fighting or grappling, but with Naruto's ability to take no physical damage, it would be perfect for him.

Sarutobi also intended to work on the boy's taijutsu, and help unlock his chakra, if that was even necessary. Because of his other duties as Hokage, Sarutobi made liberal use of the Shadow Clone technique. He also enlisted the help of two young chuunin, Yuhi Kurenai and Maito Gai, as shadow clones were liable to disperse during training, preventing full or even partial contact sparing.

The first day of training was very enlightening for all parties involved. Gai and Kurenai both stood off to the side, as the elderly Hokage and the young jinchurikki stood facing each other in the Sarutobi family training ground.

"First, Naruto," said the ancient shinobi, "We will attempt to unlock your chakra. It usually takes a few tries to do it, but I expect it won't be a problem for you." The Hokage smiled as he said this, and his expression was mirrored on the young boy's face, along with an excitement that only graced the young. Sarutobi placed his hands on Naruto's shoulders, and lightly, delicately, channeled chakra through them and into the tenketsu lying just under the skin there. He let his eyes close in concentration, and slowly, carefully, sent a stream of chakra through Naruto's chakra pathways until it reached the boy's _kaimon_, the first of the Eight Celestial Gates. Sarutobi let his chakra build up over the next few seconds, then began to use his spiritual energy to push against the Opening Gate. It took more force than he had every heard of to force open the door, and when it did, torrents of Naruto's own chakra spewed out, flooding the child's body with energy.

Naruto's eyes opened wide as he felt warmth unlike anything else he had ever felt spread through him, pouring into his legs, arms, and even his head. He suddenly felt like he could run faster than a horse, or leap higher than a jaguar! He felt complete.

Sarutobi stood back, lightly grinning as the boy became completely, and irrevocably, a ninja. Once the word had meant something else, but now a ninja was anyone who had had their chakra unlocked by another ninja. This had been the way since the time of the first ninja, the only natural ninja; The Rikkudo Sennin, Sage of the Six Paths. Pushing open the door to the first Gate allowed a body to have enough free chakra to be able to use ninjutsu, genjutsu, and taijutsu… Of course, there were martial artists who didn't use chakra, but they couldn't be said to be using true taijutsu, as even the strongest blow from a civilian couldn't equal a fraction of what a ninja could do through chakra reinforcement.

Every human had chakra, and thus the potential to become a ninja, but in order for that to happen their chakra must first be unlocked, freed from the reservoirs located within the _kaimon, _and allowed to flow freely through their bodies. If one was to make an effective ninja, this had to be done at an early age, so that the body's still growing chakra pathways could respond to the strain of so much extra chakra by widening., and so the tenketsu, the "chakra holes" located under the skin could respond by becoming stronger. There was also the matter of chakra reserves. The _hachimon_ were the area where all chakra was created and stored, and now that the first gate was cracked, it would open periodically to release bursts of stored chakra as new chakra was generated by the body. The more a ninja trained and used up their chakra, the stronger their potential to generate chakra became, and the more the internal storage area of the _hachimon_ were forced to expand, thus increasing a ninja's chakra capacity. Also, the chakra pathways in the body became larger the more one trained, allowing the body to store more chakra and increasing the power of the user's ninjutsu and taijutsu. Control was mostly a matter of mind as well as the proper timing of releasing chakra from one's tenketsu.

Naruto didn't know any of this, he was still just standing there before his mentor and grandfather figure, smiling and feeling the warmth of his inner energy. The only thing close to this he had felt before was when he had jumped off of a tree, or tried to jam stabby-kun into his skin, however that was a transitory sensation and barely brushed the surface of his skin. This warmth was everywhere.

Sarutobi allowed his student a few more moments to get a feel for having his chakra unlocked. Usually it was done the first week or two of class, by a team of specially trained chuunin and jounin he personally selected, as it was a delicate process, and the students were allowed to go home early, as many of them would be useless for work for the rest of the day. Sarutobi figured that Naruto would be able to work through it. And judging by how much chakra he had felt pour into the boy's frame, he would have enough energy to start learning some control exercises today.

Author's Note: Finally, a new chapter of _something_! This was mostly finished, actually, and just needed a bit of polish. I will try to update Rise of the Science-Nin or Heart of Gold next.


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